1. Field
Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a softening apparatus that is regenerated using an electrochemical method.
2. Description of the Related Art
When detergent is used to remove non-polar contaminants from electric home appliances (a washer, a dishwasher, etc.) using water, cleaning performance may be deteriorated due to hardness of the water and the electric home appliances may be contaminated due to microorganisms propagating in the water and a scale component.
In order to prevent cleaning performance from being deteriorated due to hardness of the water, a heater may be used to increase solubility of the detergent, a hardness component may be removed using an ion exchange method, or electrochemical capacitive deionization (CDI) using electrostatic attractive force of an ion component may be applied. However, these methods do not fundamentally remove a hardness component (Ca2+ or Mg2+) with the result that the hardness component may be deposited on an object to be washed or a complicated system may be used to remove the hardness component. In this case, however, material costs may be increased and high energy may be needed.
Ion exchange resin using an ion exchange method is relatively inexpensive and convenient. When the ion exchange resin is regenerated for repetitive use, however, a high-concentration sodium chloride solution (NaCl) is used. As a result, actual application to the system is limited due to user inconvenience and environmental regulations due to regenerated waste water.
In order to prevent the cleaning system from being contaminated due to microorganisms, various methods, such as high-temperature sterilization, decolorant ion sterilization, and negative ion sterilization, may be used. However, these methods may require high energy and cause user inconvenience due to use of additional consumable chemicals. In addition, actual application to the system is limited due to environmental regulations. For contamination due to the scale component, there are insufficient solutions.
Attempts have been made to generate hydrogen ions (H+) through electrolysis such that the hydrogen ions may be used during a regeneration process. In this case, however, when electric charges are applied, larger resistance is applied between electrodes with the increase of a gap between the electrodes.